A name for my business? Is it really that important?

Obviously any business or startup needs a name. A company name allows you to be recognized, found, talked about, linked to. But how important is it really? You certainly won’t fail or succeed just because of the name you chose but I think naming your business properly can greatly improve your chances of being remembered in a positive way. Words have different meanings and depending on the choice of words they can have a great impact on how your business is perceived by your customers. You may be perceived as trustworthy, deceptive, reliable or incompetent just because your name suggests that. You also want to make sure that people remember you easily and put you in the right context. It is hard to change a company name after it has been established in the market so you better make sure you get that part right from the start. I have therefore taken quite a bit of time now to come up with potential names for my own project dalister (which is currently a working title).

Two types of names for businesses

While trying to come up with potential names I found that there are two basic types of names for businesses.

1. Names that are based on words that have an actual meaning (e.g. ‘brightmate’, ‘soundbeach’ or ‘loosejump’)
2. Names that are based on words or letters with no meaning (e.g. ‘hangtox’, ‘lhetoor’ or ‘kentello’)

While names of the first type have clear messages based on the words they use, those of the second type do not immediately have a meaning. Type 1 is often more easily recognized and preferred by web startups due to benefits with regard to search engine optimisation. Type 2, however, allows for a completely new brand to be built and domains are often easier to find when they are based on type 2. I’m personally still not sure whether I should look for a type 1 name or go for type 2 as they both have advantages and disadvantages.

Key criteria for choosing the right name for a business

Depending on the type of business and the segment you are in the criteria for a name to be a good one are obviously different. Given that my project dalister will be a web startup I have compiled the following list of criteria based on this sector and the attributes and aspects I think are important there.

• There is a link between the business’ core features/service and its name
• The name is not used by any other company or organization on the net
• All major top level domains are still available
• The name has a maximum of 3 syllables
• The name has a pleasant or positive sound and meaning (I actually found most names with a lot of e, o, i, u and a in it sound quite nice)
• The name cannot be mixed up with others

This list is obviously not complete but for me these are the key criteria for a good company name. I have come up with hundreds of names for dalister in the past few months but few actually meet all of these criteria. I currently have the following shortlist of names that I would consider quite good:

• www.wuutuuls.com (all tlds available)
• www.wuutools.com (all tlds available)
• www.wutuuls.com (all tlds available)
• www.misusi.com (all tlds available)
• www.mituul.com (all tlds available)
• www.tuulstar.com (all tlds available)
• www.deskapz.com (all tlds available)
• www.tuulbar.com (all tlds available)
• www.desktapps.com (all tlds available)
• www.desktuuls.com (all tlds available)
• www.deskties.com (all tlds available)
• www.deskmite.com (all tlds available)
• www.deskvibes.com (all tlds available)
• www.daleido.com (all tlds available)
• www.yokolike.com (all tlds available)
• www.dalyso.com (all tlds available)
• www.dalido.com (all tlds available except .com)
• www.everdoo.com (all tlds available)
• www.kanulu.com (all tlds available)
• www.daydeck.com (all tlds available)
• www.swiftydesk.com (all tlds available)
• www.dailydesk.com (all tlds available except .com)
• www.cannymate.com (all tlds available)
• www.micyte.com (all tlds available except .net)
• www.candydesk.com (all tlds available)

As you can see I indicated whether the most common top level domains are still available or not. My favourite is dailydesk but unfortunately dailydesk.com is already taken. I also like wuutuuls as it would allow me to build some sort of family of applications (e.g. wuu-notes, wuu-todos, etc.). What do you think would be the best name for my project dalister? Unfortunately, the name dalister does not work either as the .com domain is already registered. Would be great to get your view on this!

Actively looking for problems in need of a solution

The reason why I wanted to post this on my blog is that I wanted to encourage both, myself and my readers, to actively watch out for problems that we have and could potentially solve. I guess we often deal with problems and acknowledge that there is either no solution or just really bad ones. Therefore the first step should be to actively recognize that we have a problem and then think about a potential solution. That’s the theory but let me give you some real life examples.

• It is almost impossible to find a reliable mechanic online
  I just recently had to find a mechanic who would do the regular annual checkup of my car here in Frankfurt so I asked my colleagues whether they knew any mechanic they had been happy with. Unfortunately, the answers I got were not really satisfying because either people had no car or they had only been to a mechanic once and weren’t really happy with the service. So I went on Google and did some research. There were tons of auto repair shops in my neighbourhood but it was just impossible to judge whether they were good or bad at what they’re doing. Only one shop had a review (a positive one) and I ended up choosing this one. I was happy with the service and the price was fair. But having gone through this process I realized that there is no website dedicated to reviews of auto repair shops!
• Tracking todos, meetings, emails and notes electronically isn’t very convenient
  We use Outlook for emails and meetings (calendar) at work which is OK. It is not great but it does a decent job (I think). However, we do not have any system that could handle things like notes, todos or bookmarks in a quick & easy way. I know, Outlook can do these things as well (at least notes and todos) but it just does not offer the slim, nice & easy solution I am looking for. I use iGoogle for my todos and notes now (which is ok but certainly could be improved) but that way I am using two systems (Outlook and iGoogle) which I’d like to avoid. So I thought why isn’t there a simple, slick system a la iGoogle with 37signals style that I could use as my startpage and manage all those things on one page?

These are just two examples I came across during the last weeks by recognizing the problems I had. Probably not the most surprising ones but I guess they might still be valuable input when trying to find a business idea. I’ll do some more research on that in the upcoming weeks and post the results.

Why I think solving your own problem is no Panacea for finding business ideas

I think a weakness of the the ‘solving your own problem’ approach is that it requires you to be aware of a certain problem. When I look at some of the recent startups, however, I find that they often solve a problem I was not really aware of before. Some good examples for this are Groupon, Foursquare or the german startup MyMuesli. I personally would not have come up with their business idea because the problem they solve wasn’t really a problem for me. I now use their product/services because the benefits they offer made me realize that I did in fact have a “problem” – it was just a latent one. When using this method as an entrepreneur, however, you should realize that the set of business ideas you’ll be able to find is limited to the problems you have and you are aware of. It will not allow you to find the ones that address your latent needs.

What do you think about this approach? Have you dealt with problems that you think could be solved? Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.